The Renegades of Pern

I have recently been revisiting the world of Pern through audiobooks to fill a long commute. I started with The Harper Hall trilogy, backtracked to Dragonflight and Dragonquest, forward to The White Dragon, then Moreta: Dragonlady of Pern. Had to skip Nerilka's Story as it was not available as an audiobook, so moved on to Dragonsdawn, and now Renegades of Pern.

What has become very clear on this relatively quick jaunt is how very much McCaffrey's writing and worldview matured from the late 60s to 1989 when Renegades of Pern was written. With Dragonsdawn and Renegades of Pern, I am finally in the era of McCaffrey that I remember best from my youth, with relative equality between the genders of the characters, a progression towards a more show more egalitarian culture, and the written romantic relationships feeling far less dated in terms of consent and sexual politics.

That being said, the structure of Renegades is a little odd and as other reviewers have mentioned it feels a little more like a series of novellas. There are multiple plots and multiple viewpoints, and it drops one entire thread for what feels like half of the book before resuming it a long way down the road. The first half or so of the book, we are with brand new characters, and then suddenly we switch viewpoints and resume the tale of familiar faces such as Piemur and Jaxom, et al in the Southern Continent, before integrating both storylines towards the tail end of the book. With the audiobook format I found this much less jarring than I might have otherwise, so it really didn't bother me. But other readers might not realize if they've only made it through the first part of the book that much of the substance of Renegades weaves intrinsically into a continuation of the events of the end of The White Dragon and leads directly into All The Weyrs of Pern.

All this to say, as always, McCaffrey develops her characters well, though maybe old favorites may seem a little more fleshed out than the new introductions, her command of the language is satisfying to read, and her world building remains ON POINT. Renegades may be no one's favorite Pern novel for its oddities of structure, but I appreciate it as part of the overall tapestry of the world of Pern. show less

I think this is the most I've enjoyed a Pern book since the original trilogy. Truly, such a fun read. My only drawbacks were that, at times, the perspective jumping became frustrating, as I wanted very much to stay with whatever character we were with at the time, and that several threads of different stories were left unfinished. I think those are probably covered in later books, but they did still feel like abandoned plot lines, in the experience of reading this book. One example that comes quickly to mind is wondering what will happen with Toric and Denol.

As far as what made it good, it's the interweaving of the myriad of familiar characters and even of familiar events, told from different perspectives or showcasing new interactions. show more There is just so much going on, and practically everything affects everything else, and the depth of the world is so impressive while at the same time inherent and obvious. The style of world building displayed here is thorough, but also entrenched in the "show, don't tell" approach. You are experiencing the world as the characters know it, and you are also discovering it along with them as they uncover details of the past and explore further into uncharted territory. The personal and interpersonal stakes are emphasized, even as the events so deeply affect the trajectory of this entire world. show less

I did not like this book as well as the others. It reads as though either Anne or her publishers wanted another book out, but nothing was really ready. So she kludged together several partial books -- expanding earlier short stories, beginning others but not carrying the story along. It would have served better to publish them as separate stories. I got lost a couple of times. Torric heading off to attack the mutineers who stole his island? What happened? Story lines popped in and popped out so unexpectedly that it made for rough reading.

McCaffrey shifts her focus from dragonriders, harpers and lord holders to the other people who live on Pern and are affected by Thread. The book covers a longer time span: it starts around the same time as "Dragonflight" and ends a bit after the end of "The White Dragon". Many events in those books are revisited in other books through the experiences of the newly introduced characters. The book gives more depth to some of the conflicts in the previous books. It also reinforces the turn to science fiction, with more discoveries of the technology of the original settlers. It was good enough that I was happy to stick w/ the series, advancing to the next book, "All the Weyrs of Pern".

From the prologue through to the end, this book covers a span of time from Fax beginning his conquests (just before the 9th pass) clear through to the 17th turn of the 9th pass. I don't think this would typically be too much of an issue, but this book covers at least 3 different major perspectives for most of the book, and it can be quite disorienting, at times. For reference, that time span overlaps the events in Dragonflight, Dragonquest, The White Dragon, Dragonsong, Dragonsinger, Dragondrums and the short story "The Girl Who Heard Dragons", that I can remember off the top of my head.

The Renegades of Pern feels kind of cobbled together, compared to some of the other Pern books. It almost feels like a series of short stories due to show more the way it's written. I'm kind of refreshing my memory as I read through these, but it seems to me that the information provided in this book could have been presented in a different manner.

With that said, this does eventually set up the next book, All The Weyrs of Pern, and is a recommended read if you are trying to follow the 9th pass Pernese events. I just wish she would have presented this information in a different manner. show less

Yuck.

By the time I was halfway through the book I disliked all the characters. Every single one of them. They're all doing selfish crud with no redeeming features at all.

This isn't the clear good guys and bad guys Pern I was expecting, and it could have been without even changing the plot.

A few brighter spots towards the end, but to little too late, and a ending only someone selling a sequel would love.

The interesting Pern backdrop just barely helped me make it through, but you're better off finding a different Pern.

I like Pern a lot, but I get rather confused with the timeline and history because I don't read them often or in sequence. This one however, seemed to be completely a filler novel - there was no truly consistant plot to it, and it meandered between years, characters and events seemingly at random, simply to bulk out The White Dragon (with which it runs concurrently) and surrounding novels.